Resident Events is a resource for property management professionals to find, share, and rate community events and apartment party ideas with each other! Need some community event ideas? Just take a look around!

Event Hijacking - Building Out The Community Lifestyle With Outside EventsHot

When apartment communities think about apartment parties, they generally focus on their own events, whether it is that Black Friday Launch Party they have been wanting to do, or maybe a Hot Chocolate Bar For Your Winter Apartment Community Party. But there are ways to add value to the "lifestyle" program for your residents, without having to plan the event yourself! In the surrounding community, outside of the property, and in the city at large, there are often events you can leverage in your own events programming. We actually received an online invitation from an apartment community to attend the "2014 Christmas Parade". Our first reaction was that we had never seen a community put on a parade before, but it turns out that they were simply sharing information about the city's Christmas Parade. Granted, we were not residents at the community, so their invitation may have been a bit off the mark, but in general, it was a neat way to add onto the social calendar for their residents, without having had to plan the event themselves!

Stepping Up The Game

Keeping the residents up to date with local events is a great idea in itself, but there are ways to go beyond a simple heads up! The on-site team can take the time to attend the event themselves, "branding" themselves with the community name and try to form up a group of residents! This could also turn into a scavenger hunt of sorts, where the residents try to find the on-site team members! Going even beyond that, the on-site team could give away t-shirts to residents who found them, and those t-shirts would have the community logo/etc on it. At the next event, the scavenger hunt happens again, but this time, if the resident is wearing their community shirt, they get a $10 gift card! (May want to limit that to the first X number of residents to limit costs) That way, you have a quasi-outreach marketing team comprised of the on-site staff and residents all wearing the community t-shirts flowing through the community event!

Another option beyond the scavenger hunt would be to provide free snacks and drinks for those who join up with the group for a more stationary event. So let's say there is a free concert at the park. All the on-site team members would set up an area of the ground where residents can join in and get a free coke, some snacks, etc, as they enjoy the concert. Allow them to bring a guest, and the event turns into an outreach marketing event at the same time!

There are loads of different ways to leverage community and city events, so just get creative!